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Special Housing

The Special Housing category covers single-room-occupancy residences, shelters for victims of domestic violence, independent living facilities for disabled adults, and other special uses.

The Madison @ 14th Apartments in downtown Oakland, California, by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, includes 79 apartments as well as support services for low-income tenants and at-risk youth. The project also includes ground-floor retail space and a second-floor garden. The building has a central-core seismic structural system, and energy is supplied in part by photovoltaic panels.

The Homeless Assistance Center in Dallas, Texas, also known as The Bridge, renovated an existing warehouse to provide transitional housing. The nearly 75,000-square-foot (7,000-square-meter) facility occupies a downtown site of about three acres (1.2 hectare), playing a part in the city's revitalization efforts. The design by CamargoCopeland Architects and Overland Partners Architects is noteworthy for translucent walls that welcome daylight into the dorm areas, and brightly colored glass panels artfully decorated with residents' writings.

VJAA designed a new Guesthouse for Saint John's Abbey and Monastery in Collegeville, Minnesota, a campus that features the iconic Abbey Church and other structures by Marcel Breuer. The Guesthouse combines conference areas, a library, a meditation room, dining facilities, and administrative offices with thirty guest rooms facing Lake Sagatagan.

Multifamily Housing

ICON in San Diego, designed by TannerHecht Architecture, comprises 327 residences in four towers ranging from five to 24 stories, connected by bridges and terraces surrounding a garden. The tallest tower offers views of Petco Park baseball stadium and San Diego Bay. Constructed on a 55,000-square-foot (5,100-square-meter) brownfield, the project included renovation of the historic facades and penthouse of the Carnation/ Qualitee Dairy.

For the 140,000-square-foot (13,000-square-meter) Fort Point Loft Condominiums in Boston, Hacin + Associates designed the adaptive reuse of two historic structures, plus a new building on an adjacent lot and a three-story rooftop addition above all three structures.

Similarly, for the Courtyard Lofts in Long Beach, California, Studio One Eleven at Perkowitz + Ruth Architects transformed two vacant commercial buildings and an existing parking lot into residential lofts surrounding a communal courtyard.

Production Housing

The category of one- and two-family production housing recognizes outstanding design of speculative homes.

Conover Commons (not pictured here) in Redmond, Washington, by Ross Chapin Architects consists of several small cottages oriented around a lushly landscaped garden courtyard. Not unlike Craftsman bungalows of yesteryear, but vastly more energy- and resource-efficient, Conover Commons houses come with large covered front porches, and private yards surrounded by low fences, flowerboxes, and decks. A viewing platform overlooks the beautiful, heavily wooded ravine permanently set aside as open space.

The jury for the 2009 Housing Awards was chaired by Kenneth H. Workman, AIA, RWA Architects, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio, and also included Rainy Hamilton, Jr., AIA, Hamilton Anderson Associates, Inc., Detroit, Michigan; Jane Kolleeny, Architectural Record and GreenSource magazines; and Jeff Oberdorfer, FAIA, First Community Housing, San Jose, California.   >>>

Brian Libby is a Portland, Oregon-based freelance writer who has also published in Metropolis, Architectural Record, the Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.   More by Brian Libby

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Zack/de Vito Architecture designed the Laidley Street Residence for a narrow, constrained lot in San Francisco. Photo: © Bruce Damonte Extra Large Image The cuboid House at Sagaponac near Wainscott, New York was designed by Tsao & McKown Architects without a specific client. Photo: Michael Moran Photography Extra Large Image SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects created the Madison @ 14th Apartments, a mixed-use affordable housing project in Oakland, California. Photo: © Bruce Damonte The Homeless Assistance Center (The Bridge) in Dallas, Texas, received both an AIA Housing Award and an AIA/HUD Secretary Award for 2009. Photo: © Charles Davis Smith, AIA Extra Large Image The Bridge was designed by CamargoCopeland Architects and Overland Partners Architects. Photo: © Charles Davis Smith, AIA Extra Large Image Translucent glazing unifies the upper floor the Guesthouse at Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Photo: Paul Crosby Extra Large Image The ground-floor living space of the abbey Guesthouse overlooks Marcel Breuer's campus to the north and sloping woodlands to the south. Photo: Paul Crosby Extra Large Image The four-tower ICON mixed-use residential development in San Diego, California was designed by TannerHecht Architecture. Photo: © Hewitt/ Garrison Architectural Photography Extra Large Image Studio One Eleven at Perkowitz + Ruth Architects adapted two derelict commercial buildings and an adjacent parking lot to create the Courtyard Lofts in Long Beach, California. Photo: © Alan Pullman Extra Large Image In its design for a new condominium in the Fort Point Channel Historic District of Boston, Hacin + Associates integrated new construction with two historic structures. Photo: Bruce T. Martin Photography Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.